IT WAS on March 29, 1927. Sir Henry O'Neal de Hane Segrave and Gar Wood were
standing in front of the latter's winter home on Indian River, Florida. After
the War Segrave had told the world that he would build a race car and drive it
over the sands of Daytona Beach, Florida, at over two hundred miles an hour. The
world thought the War had driven him mad.

On that very morning in March, 1927, he had rocketed his Mystery Sunbeam
across one measured mile of Daytona sands at 203.79 miles an hour. That was the
fastest any human being had ever traveled on land.

Tall, slim, handsome, clothed in white tropic knickers tightened with a
leather belt about his waist -- this young Briton, schooled in danger, was like
a bundle of charged steel wire, controlled. At seventeen he was in charge of
British machine gunners in France during the War. He left Eton when the War
broke out, went to Sandhurst. There he was gazetted a lieutenant in the infantry
and rushed to the front.

On May 17, 1915 he was shot in a hand to hand encounter in what was thought
to be an abandoned German trench. Segrave was rescued by men of his own
battalion and taken back of the lines. For days he was near death. He was sent
back to England, convalesced and before long he had joined the British Air
Service. He flew to the front April 14, 1916. In less than two months he was
gazetted captain and flight commander. He brought down four enemy ships before
his own ship was riddled with enemy bullets. His broken body was found at dusk,
slumped in a battered cockpit in a tree.

He lived to become technical advisor of the British Air Council.

After the War he joined the Sunbeam company. In March, 1927, he took his Mystery
Sunbeam to Daytona, Florida, where he set a land speed record that amazed
the world.

They were talking speedboats, Sir Henry Segrave and Gar Wood. Segrave had
just stepped out of the fastest boat ride he had ever had in his life. Wood's Miss
America V was there in the boatwell.

The name of Lord Northcliffe (Alfred Harmsworth) was mentioned. Segrave
remembered what Lord Northcliffe had said to Tom Clarke, his news editor, when
he sent him to America:

"Don't forget, Tom, that immediately you leave Southampton you
are going to the greatest country in the worldthe land of big ideas, big
men, big business, big talk, big buildings, big everything. You have got
to speak with wideeyed admiration; you've seen nothing like it;
unbelievable; thrilling; 100 per cent everything. As long as you are
among Americans they and their country are the biggest things that ever
happened. Of course, you can forget it all immediately you set foot in
Southampton again."

But Segrave didn't forget it. He felt all this in the slim, whitehaired
speedboat king beside him, in Gar Wood. Wood sums up his century as few men
do-speed-invention (Wood is an inventor)money-engines-production-yachts-seaplanes.
Segrave could see that.

They were talking about boats, the British International Trophy, and Lord C.
C. Wakefield, Segrave's benefactor. Wakefield, England's Rockefeller, was
governing director of C. C. Wakefield and Company, Ltd., perhaps the largest oil
company in all England. He was interested in speed records. It was Wakefield who
financed Captain James A. Mollison in his westward flight across the Atlantic.
He also aided Amy Johnson's record flights to Australia.

Segrave turned to Wood. "There's no reason why Lord Wakefield will not
be interested in boats as far as I can see," he said. "We've won the
records we wanted on land and in the air. What England wants now is the water
speed record and the British International Trophy. I think Lord Wakefield will
be interested."

Before these two men parted Wood bought a Sunbeam car from Sir Henry. The
Englishman took an outboard motor back to England with him.

Segrave almost immediately began to experiment, to study. He went to the
plant of Hubert Scott-Paine at Southampton, England. Together with Fred Cooper
they built Miss England I, powered with the 900-horsepower Napier Lion
engine Segrave had used in his Mystery Sunbeam. The boat was twenty-seven
and one-half feet long with a seven and one-half foot beam, built of five-skin
mahogany.

They made mistakes. Perhaps the greatest mistake they made was building a
flexible hull. The hull of a high speed boat must be firm, rugged. At high
speeds water becomes similar to a solid; just as air at high speeds in a plane
becomes a liquid. No flexible hull could stand the jarring of a boat travelling
over a sheet of corrugated glass at eighty miles an hour. That's what a sheet of
water becomes at high speed-grooved glass.

Segrave found that out in Florida in the Spring of 1929. He shipped his
famous racing car, the Golden Arrow, and his Miss England to
America on the same boat. With the Golden Arrow he set a new land speed
of 231.36 miles an hour at Daytona Beach on March 11, 1929.

After the record Wood went to Segrave and asked the Englishman to show him
his boat and give him a demonstration of its performance. Upon looking at the
boat when it was out of water Wood saw immediately that the propeller was too
large and the bow rudder poorly designed. A test run of the boat proved both
these factors to be true.

The Committee at Miami Beach was anxious to have Segrave bring his boat to
the annual Regatta and pit it against Wood's Miss America VII. In view of Wood's
criticism of his boat, Segrave didn't know what to do, so Wood volunteered to
send his crew of mechanics to Daytona Beach to put on a proper rudder and to
furnish Segrave with suitable propellers.

After considerable calculation of Segrave's horsepower and hull design Wood
ordered three propellers from the Hyde Company and gave them to Segrave. With a
new rudder on his boat and with Wood's propellers the Miss England I was a very
formidable, competitive boat. That's what Wood wanted. He wanted a good race.

After a successful trial run at Daytona Beach Segrave shipped his boat to
Miami Beach. He knew that if he could at least make a showing in this contest
he'd have little difficulty getting financial backing from Lord Wakefield for a
future Harmsworth boat. He discussed this possibility with Wood and the American
sportsman agreed that they should stage a close race. Wood was extremely anxious
for Segrave to play an important role in Harmsworth competition.

Segrave had a strong vivid stripe of the dare-devil in him. Before the race
he asked Wood for the pole position.

Wood said, "That's dangerous, sir. My boat is faster. When I cut in on
you you'll have to take my wash."

Segrave answered, "I'll take the chance."

He was given the pole position. When Wood cut across Segrave's bow the solid
spray of his Miss America VII struck Segrave full in the face. For a few
desperate seconds Segrave didn't know what had happened.

Miss America VII had been in the South for some time and the salt water
had eaten away the steering cable unbeknown to the Wood crew. The two boats made
a beautiful start. The dark mahogany hull of the Miss America and the
pure white hull of the Miss England. Although Miss America VII led
the Miss England to the first turn, on making the turn the steering gear
cable let go and Miss America was unable to proceed. The news was flashed
over the world that at last a British boat had beaten Gar Wood in a championship
race. The rules governing this particular event were set up by the American
Powerboat Association on what is known as a point system; and all the British
boat had to do in the second heat was to finish to gain one more point than the
American boat which did not finish the first heat. Segrave finished the second
heat and won the race even though Gar Wood lapped him three times.

According to American boat designers, the English made grave mistakes in
building Miss England I. In the first place Fred Cooper, designer of the
boat, had insisted on both a bow and an aft rudder. Segrave said it helped him
to make sharper turns.

But Wood told him that an aft rudder is dangerous. And it is. Events at
Detroit in 1931 proved it when Kaye Don almost went to his death. Wood uses
simply a bow rudder. He makes the sharp turns with his propellers, throttling
the inside (buoy) propeller, while the outside propeller is speeded.

Wood also believes that it is dangerous to set the cockpit ahead of the
engines. He told Segrave, "I want those engines ahead of me when we crack
up. If your hull blows to pieces, what chance have you? Those engines are a wall
of steel in front of you." Wood discovered how true this was when his Miss
America VI blew up on the St. Clair River the year before this, 1928.

But Segrave said, "I've got to see the course ahead of me. I can't see
with those engines spitting flames and gases in my face."

The English persisted in this theory. Disaster rode high on the wings of
their next boat, Miss England II. Segrave may have escaped death had he
been sitting BEHIND the engines at Lake Windermere. I merely say "may
have" because nothing is certain in this dangerous business. The fact is
that Wood, after almost thirty years of racing, still lives.

At any rate Segrave gained great popularity in England because of his success
against Gar Wood. He went back to England with his Miss England I, obtained the
backing of Lord Wakefield and a new boat, Miss England II, began to take shape.
Segrave had his heart set now on the British International Trophy and the world
speed record on water.

But the Spring of 1930 came and Segrave had not challenged for the Trophy.
His hull experiments had not been completed. He made some adjustments in his old
boat, Miss England I, and cabled Wood during the summer:

Cannot challenge for Harmsworth this year but if you send boat to
Venice regatta will promise to bring Miss Eng land to Detroit in 1930.

Wood didn't want to send his boat to Venice, Italy. "What's there in
it?" he asked me one day. "I've got the Harmsworth Trophy and the
world speed record. I think the Italians should send their racers to this
country if they want to race for the world championship."

But I was interested in keeping the Harmsworth races alive so I told Wood
that it was a chance to interest Italy in the world's premiere speedboat event.
"This race at Venice is for the Count Volpi Cup, Gar," I reminded him.
"It's one of the most important trophies in Italy." I also told him
that the Duke of Spoleto, cousin of King Victor Immanuel, was in charge of the
Regatta and that Italian royalty would attend the event.

Finally, Wood agreed. He conferred with Napoleon Lisee, Orlin Johnson, Vance
Smith and his brothers George and Phil Wood. These men wanted him to send his
best boat, the Miss America VIII, immediately after the 1929 Harmsworth
race at Detroit.

But Wood said, "No. Absolutely not. We'll send THE SEVENTH and THE
FIFTH, but not the EIGHTH. Never. I may need her. She's the best boat
we ever had."

Immediately after the 1929 Harmsworth race on the Detroit River against Miss
Carstairs, Miss America VII was put on an express car ready for the swift
dash to Venice, Italy. Remember now, that was the race in which George Wood and
Gar Wood finished bow to bow, Gar getting the judges' decision. During this
strenuous race the SEVENTH did considerable porpoising in rough water, so
much so that the side planking was badly strained. This weakened the boat
considerably.

In a hurry to get the boat loaded on the express car for Italy this damage
was not noticed. It was covered with canvas and shipped the same night to New
York where it was almost immediately put aboard the trans-Atlantic liner for
Naples, Italy.

Orlin Johnson, Phil Wood and Vance Smith were already in Venice with the Miss
America V when the broken boat arrived. They saw immediately that it could
never stand the jarring of a fast race. But they had orders from Wood. Phil Wood
said, "It'll sound silly to all America if we don't put up some kind of a
race."

So Phil Wood and Orlin Johnson drove the broken boat. Prince Carlo Ruspoli, a
son-in-law of Count Volpi, and Vice-Chairman of the Regatta Committee, piloted Miss
America V, with Vance Smith at the throttles. It was fortunate for Johnson
that they made exactly this arrangement. The man might have been dead today but
for that.

The two American boats were laying back about 200 yards ready to hit the line
first at the gun. They had checked their time at the judges' stand. They were
ready. Phil Wood and Johnson both agreed to keep the SEVENTH up there in
the race until she broke up. They wouldn't quit.

They had just started for the line, two hundred yards back, when the gun
blasted the signal. They had made a mistake in their time. Sir Henry Segrave had
beaten them across. Vance Smith, engineering the FIFTH, pulled out the
throttles. But before he could get any speed the SEVENTH thundered past
like a bullet in a mad dash after Segrave and the Miss England I.

Vance could see Phil Wood and Johnson closing in on Segrave. Then, suddenly,
for no apparent reason, the SEVENTH shot about twelve feet into the air.
Phil Wood and Johnson were pitched out of the cockpit. When the two white
figures hit the water they were one hundred feet apart. The SEVENTH kept
going in a great white arc to the right, finally burying itself on shore. It was
destroyed.

But Vance acted fast. He throttled down the engines of the FIFTH and
Prince Carlo Ruspoli, driving, pulled up beside Johnson, floating on the
surface. Johnson's head was thrown back, his mouth and eyes were open, like a
dead man.

Vance made one desperate leap. He took Johnson by the hair and lifted him out
of the water with the strength of a crazed man, dragged the body over the hot
engines, and started to administer artificial respiration.

The water kept pouring out of Johnson's mouth. Vance kept at him. They were
in a speedboat now, racing to the marine hospital at Santa Ana. Vance Smith
didn't even remember how they got there, in the speedboat. For twenty minutes in
that mad bounding dash to the hospital Vance kept working on his man. He began
to believe Johnson was really dead. But just as their boat pulled up at the dock
Johnson let out a gasp. He was breathing. He was alive. ALIVE. "That
gasp-," Vance said. "It was the sweetest sound I ever heard in my
life."

Orlin Johnson lived! But his skull was fractured.

Phil Wood was taken to the hospital in another boat. He suffered contusions
about the hip. Prince Ruspoli was floating around the Adriatic sea in the
mechanic-abandoned Miss America V. Sir Henry Segrave won the race.

When Segrave visited Johnson in the Italian hospital he invited him to stop
at Cowes, Isle of Wight, before he returned to America, to get a look at the new
Harmsworth boat they were building, Miss England II.

Johnson was not well enough to visit England but he asked Segrave now what
the boat was made of.

"Seven-ply mahogany," was the answer.

Johnson smiled, said, "That boat will never bet to America."

"Why not?" Segrave looked at Johnson, surprised.

Then Johnson told him Wood's experience with the Bruin in the 1923
Sweepstakes. The Bruin, too, had been built of plywood. It was out on the
first lap with her bottom ripped out of her.

Segrave said, "I honestly don't know what is going to happen, old
fellow, when I release 4,000 horsepower to that little fifteen-inch
propeller."

Wakefield had given Segrave carte blanche. "I don't care what it costs.
But return the British International Trophy to England," he had told him.

Backed by the British Air Ministry, the Rolls-Royce Company, Ltd., had
developed a new aircraft engine of 2,000 horsepower. Wakefield went to the
Ministry and contracted for the rights to use two of those engines.

When the boat was finished it was a seven-ton projectile, powered with two
2,000 horsepower Rolls-Royce engines that spun a tiny twobladed propeller
through the water at 12,000 revolutions a minute.

Fred Cooper installed both a bow and an aft rudder.

The engines were still behind the cockpit.

Segrave and Cooper speeded the boat to completion and took it to Lake
Windermere for a try at Gar Wood's world record-92.838 miles an hour, done with Miss
America VII on the Detroit River in 1928.

Here was a young man with scarcely two years' knowledge of fast boats already
aiming at the world speed record. And doing it with a 4,000 horsepower bomb that
hadn't tasted water.

That is the character of the Briton.

Miss England II was ready on Friday, June 13, 1930. Segrave, Michael
Willcocks, engineer of the boat, and W. Hallwell, of the Rolls Royce Company,
Ltd., all dressed in spotless white overalls and special steel lifebelts,
stepped into the cockpit.

Segrave turned to Willcocks and said, "It's Friday the 13th. I wonder
what's going to happen."

TWO of them were going to their death.

The boat shot out above the measured-mile straightaway where the official
timers stood, ready to dash over the measured-mile laid out about in the center
of the lake between Lakeside and Ambleside. Segrave was making a few practice
spins far out there above the markers. The Miss England II looked like a
white ghost, its wings of spray spread wide, its engines droning-a thing of
beauty, symmetry, flawless grace. It was perhaps the most beautiful speedboat
ever built, its bow and its aft end tapering almost to the thinness of a knife
blade.

It cut a great white arc in the water, then it straightened. Segrave was
cutting down toward the markers, his steady hand tight on the wheel, his eyes
glued to the narrow, glass-flat path before him, his foot pressing the throttle
to both engines.

The engines cannoned louder as they approached the first marker. When he
crossed, throttles down, the thing was like the mad screaming of 4,000 wounded
war horses, agonized and frightened.

Miss England II shot across the first mile at 96.41 miles per hour.

Two runs must be made across the measured mile; one against wind or current,
one with.

It came back at 101.11 miles an hour. The average was 98.76 -a new world
record.

But this courageous young Briton did not know he had broken the world record.
He was not satisfied. He took his craft to the upper end of the course again and
brought it back with everything it had. The roar was terrific. The official
timers could not clock it this time. It did not complete the mile. It made a
sudden turn, the quivering thing shot clear of the water like a white rocket,
its engines screaming. Segrave and his two men were pitched like meteors from
the cockpit. There was a puff of blue, curling smoke . . . a dive . . . silence.

Ten boats rushed out to the rescue. Segrave himself was picked up by P. F.
King, of Windermere, who plunged into the lake after him. He was unconscious.

Hallwell drowned.

Willcocks was severely injured.

Segrave and Willcocks were rushed to a hospital. Segrave suffered a broken
arm, a broken rib and a fractured thigh. He regained consciousness for a few
minutes. He turned to Lady Segrave at his bedside and asked, "How are the
lads?" meaning his men. And then, "Did we do it?"

Lady Segrave told him he had, that he broke the record.

He died in a few moments of lung hemorrhages.

The drowned body of Hallwell was found, a pencil clutched in one hand, a pad
of paper in the other. He'd evidently been taking tachometer readings.

Willcocks recovered.

Probably no one will ever know for sure what sent these men to their death.
It may have been the tremendous torque on the tiny propeller. Twenty minutes
after the disaster a water-soaked branch of a tree, three inches thick, was
picked up several hundred yards from the stern of the boat. That may be the
answer. No one knows.

The most likely solution to the riddle is that the detachable step ripped
off. The forward plane of Miss England II was built on after the main
hull was completed and was not an integral part of the boat in its original
design. The reason for this, Segrave explained, was that neither he nor his
designers knew for sure what angle the forward plane should be in order to get
the best performance and that the structure they applied was made so that it
could be moved and changed.

Wood said that it is practically impossible for a plane attached in this
manner to withstand the terrific pressure of water at such speeds as one hundred
miles an hour. When the boat was raised out of sixty feet of water the greater
part of the front step was torn away and the entire bottom was broken up.

Miss Carstairs, undaunted by the disaster, sent her two boats to America, Estelle
IV and V, almost immediately afterwards, in her third and last
attempt to lift the Trophy from Gar Wood. We have already seen how she failed.

Hubert Scott-Paine, builder of Miss England I, went to the Rolls Royce
Company. He wanted the rights to the engines in Miss England II for a
Harmsworth boat he planned to build. They referred him to Lord Wakefield.

Meanwhile, Wakefield's friends had persuaded him to carry on. He refused
Scott-Paine the use of the engines. He had Miss England II restored. Kaye
Don, a silent, affable but daring young Briton, was put behind the wheel.